


You Are My Sunshine

by Tormented_Gale



Category: Tales of the Abyss
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-11 19:32:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4449440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tormented_Gale/pseuds/Tormented_Gale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things are meant to be. Some things come to too soon an end.</p>
<p>((Inspired by the song of the same title.))</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are My Sunshine

__**You are my sunshine, my only sunshine  
You make me happy when skies are grey  
You never know, dear, how much I love you  
Please don’t take my sunshine away**

It’s days like today that make him think “I’m lucky”. He never used to think like that. Years and years of constant happiness eroded his stubborn attitude until all that remained was a young man. He had a life to live. He had someone to live it with, to cherish, to hold him through the nightmares and the jolting awake early in the morning.

He had someone who rubbed his back, who made him laugh, who refused to let him fall back into the pit of despair that was always just a few inches away. Even happiness had its limits to how much it could help. When he felt that hand in his hair, though, calloused fingers working through green strands, he always closed his eyes, and listened to the breathing of someone he could not live without.

__**The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping  
I dreamt I held you in my arms  
When I awoke, dear, I was mistaken  
So I hung my head, and I cried**

Waking up is more than painful. He opens his eyes, breathes in, and realizes the scent has faded a little more. If he turns his head into the pillow it’s still there but he always wonders how long before he can’t smell it at all. He doesn’t rise, not easily, not unless he feels a reason to, and for the life of him he can’t really think of one. There was his promise - 

_I’ll live on._

\- but even that seems empty and broken when every time he looks beside him he expects to see a longer body just waiting to be curled up against.

He doesn’t improve as time goes on. He wanders, aimlessly, a ghost in their house. There is no one to pull him from this - not that he would let them - because he only knew how to let one person in, and that person is gone. He wants to feel that long red hair running through his fingers, taste the pressing lips that forever were his to kiss, to pass his fingers over scars long healed yet never closed.

He wants to hear his name spoken with such reverence as they move with one rhythm. He wants to hear his name spoken at all. He wants, and he cannot have, and that is what makes him return to the bed and bury his face.

__**You are my sunshine, my only sunshine  
You make me happy when skies are grey  
You never know, dear, how much I love you  
Please don’t take my sunshine away**

They were happy, even during the illness. It limited them to activities that weren’t straining, not that they didn’t test each others’ limits, but that was fine so long as they were together. They sat below trees with books on their laps, only breaking the hold on the other’s hand when they had to turn a page. 

_He remembers the feeling of lips on the side of his neck and laughing, “Now?” to which there is a resounding, “Always,” as a response._

Then it got worse. The old wounds ached more, the blurred vision made it hard to tell where he was, his mind - oh, his mind was still so sharp when he wasn’t fighting back delusion. They were together always, but so alone, as the illness took a firmer hold.

_He remembers holding his lover through the worst of the fevers and listening for every breath. He remembers when they both stopped breathing, but instead of his ending too, he gasps for air while none comes from the man in his arms._

__**I’ll always love you and make you happy  
If you will only say the same  
But if you leave me to love another,  
You’ll regret it all one day**

He sits at the window and stares out across fields and flowers and trees, but it’s all ultimately meaningless. There is no reason to stay here, now that it is an empty house, and even with the lingering scents, the vivid memories, it is more painful to exist than it is to walk out and turn his back. He has done it so many times to so many people, yet this one feels more final than all the others.

Friends visit, but they are not his friends, and they cannot coax him from his world. If anything, they make things worse, a false sense of caring combined with a remembrance of who they loved too. He has no connection with them - cannot  _fathom_ one - yet he is almost desperate for them not to leave. They, at least, speak, unlike the ghosts that haunt this place, ghosts that are so loud in his mind and so quiet around guests.

When the blond woman - Queen, now - speaks so kindly, so gently to him, he rips his hand away and feels the tears burn his eyes. He knew she loved the one who was forever gone, loved him more than anyone except perhaps the person she was trying to comfort. That hurts more, so he throws his caustic words at her, throws them and watches them crumble to dust.

She sings him to sleep that night and he curses that she ever existed.

**_You are my sunshine, my only sunshine_  
You make me happy when skies are grey  
You never know, dear, how much I love you  
Please don’t take my sunshine away**

He visited the grave every single day after Asch was buried. Some days, he simply sat before it with nothing to offer except his stare and his fingers clenching in the dirt. Others, he wept, flowers crushed to his chest and head bowed and shoulders shaking so hard he thought he might break apart more than he already has. He reached out to run his fingers over the headstone, over and over, hoping it was all just a dream - 

but his dreams were always nightmares. Nothing would change that.

When he was eventually found, it was by those so sympathetic it made him ill. He turned from their hands and their touches and tried not to fall apart in front of them. He didn’t  _want_ pity, or sympathy, because that hurt as much as watching Asch die in his arms, but that was all these people could give.

He hated them more and more every day.

The pit seemed so much safer, securer, and he fell wholeheartedly into it rather than looking back at the shattered pieces he was certain he left behind.

One day, he simply stood up, lifted his old, white coat from the closet, and went looking for a fight.

**_Please don’t take my sunshine away_ **

He knows Asch would laugh at his silliness, chiding him for his stupidity. He half expects to hear it in his ear as a gentle hand tries to ease the pain spreading through his abdomen like wildfire. As it is, he hears those sympathetic morons trying to heal his wounds and knows it won’t work because he’s lived long enough and his body is broken as much as his heart.

Yet, he is at peace here, surrounded by bodies of those who would have harmed the people Asch loved. He is, at the end of all things, a protector, the least likely title to be associated with him. Even if Asch is gone, forever, they are safe, and that is all he can ask. They call his name, yell at him, even slap him, but he merely closes his eyes and smiles.

_It’s alright. Everything’s okay._

The voice is so quiet, but he feels those familiar arms embrace him, one hand covering the gaping hole in his stomach, cool and gentle. He chokes on blood but breathes fresh air, leans back into the body holding his as the real world fades away.

_You said you would live._

_I did._

The arms tighten - Asch never liked when he lied.

_Sync -_

_Don’t be upset._ Placating. Gentle. Imploring.

A grumble. He lets out a choked laugh and splutters, red dribbling from his lips. The arms tighten around him and he can  _smell_ it, that cinnamon and spice that is just Asch, and he closes his eyes. When he opens them, he sees solid hands at his waist, and marvels as he touches them with his own.

_I guess, this one time, I can forgive you_.

At last, when he smiles, it is without reservation. His sunshine is his once more.


End file.
